RIYADH: A drop in food prices during September pushed inflation in Saudi Arabia slightly off an 18-month peak but home rents continue to rise amid a dearth of housing. September consumer inflation was 5.9 percent above its level of a year earlier, the government’s statistics department said, against 6.1 percent for August. This puts inflation …

KHOBAR: Saudi Arabia has granted additional time to one of the consortia hunting for gas in the vast desert in the country’s southeast, an industry source said on Monday. In a rare opening for international firms, state-run Saudi Aramco set up four consortia in 2003-2004 to drill in the southeast, but so far they have …

STOCKHOLM/CAIRO: Sweden’s Electrolux has agreed in principle to buy Egypt’s Olympic Group, the biggest appliance maker in the Middle East and North Africa, in a push to capture growth in emerging markets. The world’s second-biggest maker of fridges, vacuum cleaners and cookers has had a commercial partnership with Olympic in the region for the last …

On Sunday, Orascom Telecom said it has not received any official notification from Algeria that it it’s local unit Djezzy should pay Algeria’s central bank $193 million, in a note to the bourse on Sunday. An Algerian official told Reuters last week that the central bank has decided to demand $193 million in compensation from …

MOSCOW: The battle for control of Algerian telecoms business Djezzy will be over in weeks, and whatever the outcome, Russian group Vimpelcom expects its plan to buy billions of dollars of Egyptian-owned assets to go ahead. "My feeling is that we will see clarity within weeks, not months. In the view of how the deal …

CAIRO: Zamalek’s double-minded wing-back Hazem Emam has called on the club on Saturday to let him join Saudi Arabian side Al-Faisaly. The talented but temperamental 22-year-old said he lost hopes of breaking into Zamalek’s starting XI under coach Hossam Hassan despite revealing his intention to stay at the club last month. "I initially wanted to …

DUBAI: Kuwait Energy Co, which operates in the Middle East, Russia and Pakistan, plans to launch an initial public offering (IPO) within nine months, the company said on Sunday. Kuwait Energy said its shares may be listed on the London and Kuwait stock exchanges, subject to market conditions. The company had originally planned an IPO …

  DUBAI: Plans for an ambitious clean-energy city being built in the desert outside Abu Dhabi are being scaled back as part of a wide-ranging review of the $22 billion project, the government announced Sunday.   The state company behind Masdar City said the project won’t be completed until at least 2020 — four years …

WASHINGTON: The United States on Thursday criticized an agreement between Egypt and Iran to resume direct flights between their capitals. "We’re aware of the reports that they’ve signed a memorandum of understanding to resume direct flights," Mark Toner, a State Department spokesman, told reporters. "And we continue to urge all countries, including Egypt, not to …

CAIRO: Egypt is offering import relief to counter the rising prices of meat and poultry, which have increased to levels exceeding the international rate — reaching 25 percent and 40 percent respectively, the central bank said in a statement. The statement is the government’s first admission of an abnormal price hike in these products. “The …

CAIRO: Zamalek have turned down an initial €2.5 million offer from Belgian side Standard Liege to sign forward Shikabala, the club’s chairman Galal Ibrahim said on Wednesday. A Standard delegation sat down with Zamalek officials to discuss a possible deal for the talented 24-year-old, who was also targeted by Belgian giants Anderlecht in the summer. …

Egypt’s net foreign reserves stood at $35.53 billion at the end of September, little changed from a month earlier, the Central Bank of Egypt said on its website on Thursday. Net foreign reserves reached $33.51 billion in September 2009.

NICOSIA: Russia is reimbursing Iran for its down payments on a deal for advanced S-300 ground-to-air missiles which Moscow halted in the face of tough new UN sanctions, Russian Technologies Chief Sergei Chemezov told reporters on Thursday. "We are now preparing all the necessary documents," said Chemezov, whose company includes arms exporting monopoly Rosoboronexport. "We …

Egypt and Iran have agreed to resume direct flights between their capitals for the first time since 1979, Egypt’s ministry of civil aviation said on Monday, but an official played down any chance of a political thaw. The two countries severed ties in 1980 following Iran’s Islamic revolution and Egypt’s recognition of Israel. Sameh Hefni, …

Egypt has secured $270 million from the World Bank to fund a solar power plant, the state news agency MENA said on Tuesday. Egypt, which has about 25,000 megawatts of power capacity, has suffered repeated outages this year and plans to spend $100-120 billion to triple capacity by 2027. The Kom Ombo Solar Power Plant, …

The African Development Bank will provide LE 550 million to finance the project of new Suez steam station with a capacity of 650 megawatts, which will provide electricity for future projects in the area of Northwest Gulf of Suez and free zones there. Minister of Electricity and Energy Hassan Younes said on Friday the investment …

ISTANBUL: About a week ago, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad declared to the United Nations that most people in the world believe the United States was behind the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. To many people in the West, the statement was ludicrous, almost laughable if it weren’t so incendiary. And surveys show that a …

JEDDAH: Top oil exporter Saudi Arabia expects to see growth in power demand drop by half after 2015 as the kingdom boosts its capacity, the chief executive of state-controlled Saudi Electricity Co (SEC) said. "We don’t expect it [demand growth] to remain at eight percent for 10 years," Ali al-Barrak told reporters late on Sunday. …

CAIRO: The Egyptian Publishers Union (EPU) reached a resolution with the Ministry of Education regarding publishing supplementary textbooks, reducing fees for publishing licenses from LE 40 million to LE 3 million. "EPU asked the ministry either to reduce the fees of publishing licenses required from each publishing house, or receive 2.5 percent of the annual …

  By Tamim Elyan Special to Daily News Egypt   CAIRO: Claudia Ehlers has always dreamed of seeing the pyramids – a dream dismissed by almost everyone she told given the challenges she would face as a physically challenged tourist. “But I followed my dream in defiance of all difficulties,” Ehlers said. The German tourist …

Egypt’s Misr Beni Suef Cement (MBSC) will distribute a dividend on Oct. 14 of one share for every share held, the stock exchange said on Thursday. MBSC’s shares edged down 0.3 percent on Thursday to LE 182.90 ($32.09) while the benchmark index fell 1 percent.    

PINTO, Spain: Alberto Contador blamed it all on a bad piece of filet mignon, and promised he would prevail in the end. The three-time Tour de France winner said contaminated meat caused his positive doping test for a "very small concentration" of the banned substance clenbuterol. It was found in his urine sample on July …

From the desert of New Mexico to the desert of Egypt, bursts of light flash through black squares on the walls of the American University in Cairo’s Photographic Gallery. This month, AUC hosts the first overseas exhibition of the photography of the late American photographer Walter Chappell (1925-2000), titled “Metaflora.” “Metaflora” is subtitled “A series …

Egypt currently has 23 public-private partnership (PPP) projects open for tendering to the private sector, with eight already approved, officials said this week. Next year, the market will be saturated with PPPs, said Rania Galal Zayed, advisor to the minister of finance and director of the PPP Central Unit, during a panel discussion titled “Infrastructure …

HC Brokerage initiated El Sewedy with a "neutral" rating, and said while the company’s cable profitability remains superior compared with peers, it is not entirely immune to overcapacity in the Middle East and North Africa region. The investment bank set a price target of LE 74.1 on shares of El Sewedy — the Arab world’s …

Egypt does not need to extend a ban on cement exports that expired on Wednesday, the country’s trade minister said. "Today while we sit here, the ban on export of cement has expired," Trade and Industry Minister Rachid Mohamed Rachid said at a business conference in Cairo. "Supply and demand mechanisms in the market ensure …

VIENNA: Afghanistan’s opium production declined by almost half this year due largely to the spread of a disease that damaged poppy plants, but the amount of land used for growing the crop remained the same, the U.N.’s drug agency said Thursday. The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime said Afghanistan’s opium production in 2010 …

JERUSALEM: US envoy George Mitchell and EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton converged on Israel and the Palestinian territories Thursday in a bid to rescue peace talks on the verge of collapse. Mitchell was due to meet Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas at midday (1000 GMT) at his headquarters in the West Bank city of Ramallah, …

PRAGUE: On Nov. 7, when Burma’s first general election for almost two decades is to be held, a well-rehearsed script will play out. The country’s ruling generals will twist what is meant to be a democratic process, whereby the people get to express their will, into a mockery of free expression in which people vote …

UNITED NATIONS: Kings, emirs and presidents from Muslim nations have made pressing appeals at the United Nations for the West to clampdown on attacks on Islam which they warned is a growing threat to international security. In speeches to the UN General Assembly, leaders said that "Islamophobia" was causing a growing Muslim-West divide and one …